A Construction Grammar-Based Syntactic-Semantic Study Of Before

Based on Goldberg's(1995,2006)construction grammar and Langacker's(2008)cognitive grammar and combined with the research methods such as corpus analysis and induction and deduction,this thesis has elaborately attempted to glean a clear syntactic-semantic study of X before Y construction and its prototype NP1 before NP2,describing the conceptual matrix of the prototypical member and peripheral ones.With respect to the formal research,from the vertical dimension,this thesis has found that X before Y construction has productivity.More precisely,it is not restricted into different types of nouns or noun phrases that can be inserted into this construction,but it can extend to variation of grammatical forms such as the omitted argument Y,which reflects null instantiation or the extendable components of X before Y construction like clauses.However,the typical prototype appears to be served by NP1 before NP2.Moreover,every expression can convey a certain of space-time relation which refers to the context such as a spatial or temporal point that the various kinds of X and Y components can elaborate on one sentence.In brief,various kinds of grammatical units that are acceptable in X before Y construction suggest that X before Y construction is a highly structured and hierarchical network in which constructions are interconnected.Furthermore,in this network,inheritance of X before Y construction conveys a relation between more abstract constructions which are located close to the top of the constructional network,and more specific constructions,which are situated at the lower levels of the constructional hierarchy.In addition,the inheritance of this network can be regarded as a downwards relation.In other words,more specific constructional characteristics are not projected upwards.More precisely,although these specific constructional patterns have inherited a very basic formal aspect,NP1 before NP2 from the more general X before Y construction,they have possessed their own idiosyncrasies.And in terms of the horizontal dimension,X before Y construction can represent a relation of head-modifier,which denotes embedded structure.On the one hand,before Y structure seems to be dependent on X.On the other hand,Y can be regarded as an autonomous structure,which will be inserted by various kinds of grammatical units,constituting an elaboration of a salient substructure within before.In terms of the semantic research,the author has observed that a basic sense of X before Y construction with its extended senses can be connected through metaphorical links.Crucially speaking,the prototype of the spatial particle before can designate a locative meaning.More precisely,the one in the advance position will encounter other entities first.In this sense,the abstraction of sequence from physical location illustrates the correlation between time and space.Based on this correlation,the domain of space can be extended through metaphorical mechanism into the temporal domain.Moreover,the extensions of meaning from time into more abstract senses have followed a path of increasing abstraction.Furthermore,as for the metaphorical projection between the semantic prototype of before and those extended abstract senses such as priority,condition and purpose of avoidance,the blended space refers to the fact that X in the advance position happens earlier than Y,which is formed from the other two,a source space and a target space.However,the degree of category membership appears to be different,which can be verified by some certain sentence patterns.Moreover,as for the construal imposed on that content,the dimensions of focusing,perspective and prominence have been taken into consideration to demonstrate X before Y construction in this thesis based on the cognitive grammar.This thesis proves that X before Y construction can be regarded as a form-meaning pair,which is a highly structured and hierarchical network.In terms of the formal features,this construction has productivity and embedded recursion.In addition,from the perspective of the semantics,the extensions of the meanings of before from physical space into time and more abstract senses within temporal domain follow a path of metaphorical extensions.